Make them Cry (7 page)

“Sure,” Jack said.

“I’m going to send Ray a cactus plant on his birthday every year—just to remind him of what a prick he is.”

Jack laughed.

“Only I’m not sending him any cacti until I’m in a relationship myself. That’s a must. I don’t want it to be like I’m bitter. I want to do it when I’m happy. In fact, I won’t even tell Ray it’s because he’s a prick. That’ll be a private joke between me and my significant other. When I can laugh about it, that’s when I’ll send him a cactus plant on his birthday.”

Jack managed to smile. “Good idea.”

“He and Johnny didn’t get along,” Maggie said. She handed Jack the room key. “I don’t really believe it was an accident. Johnny was a good swimmer. I taught him to swim. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jack murmured. He opened the door, then handed the key back to her.

“I taught him to swim when he was five,” she continued. “You should should have seen him at the beach. They had the wading area roped off for the kids. And every time Johnny went beyond those ropes, the lifeguards would call to him on the bullhorn, and make him take a swim test. He’d always pass, then race out to the raft. I can still see him, the smallest kid out there, so skinny in his big purple trunks….”

Tears began to fill her eyes. “Oh, damn it,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to do this in front of you.” She retreated into the room, then found the bathroom, where she switched on the light. She plucked a few tissues from the dispenser on the sink counter. “I’m sorry,” she said into a wad of Kleenex. “There’s nothing worse than someone who’s drunk and weepy.”

“It’s all right,” Jack said, standing at her threshold.

Maggie leaned against the door frame. “I used to live my life for my family,” she said, her voice quivering. “Now, I feel like an outsider with my sisters. And Johnny’s gone. How do you keep going when you’ve lost everyone dear to you?”

Jack didn’t know how to answer her, beyond the usual priestly jargon about time and faith.

“How did
you
do it?” she asked. “Johnny told me how you lost your wife and son. How did you go on?”

“I almost didn’t,” Jack admitted. “But I hung in there. Different people helped me out, one old friend in particular.”

She gave him a wary sidelong glance and let out a sad little laugh. “You mean God?”

He managed to smile. “Well, being a priest, I guess that should have been my standard answer.”

“Thank you, Jack,” she said. “For not giving me the standard answer. If you cannot be a priest for just one more minute, I want to ask you something.” Her voice started to shake. “Do you hurt as much as I do? Do you miss Johnny, too?”

“Yes, Maggie,” he whispered. “I miss him very much.”

Maggie wrapped her arms around him. Jack felt her warm, wet tears along the side of his neck. He wanted to hold her and stroke her hair. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even let himself step inside that room with her.

Maggie kissed his cheek. Then her moist lips slid over to his mouth. Her body trembled against his.

He started to pull back. But she held on to him tighter, until Jack had to wrest away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She started crying again. “Can’t you just hold me for a little while? Even if you don’t like me? I feel so alone, please—”

He shook his head. “No, Maggie,” he muttered, aching with regret.

She let out a bitter laugh, and wiped her tears away. “That’s fine, don’t worry,
Father
.” Maggie staggered toward the bed and sat down. “I’m drunk,” she announced, prying off her shoes. “I’m drunk. It’s the prize excuse for everything. Forgive me, Father, for I have drunk. Do you forgive me?”

“Yes, of course,” he muttered.

“Good. You’ve done you’re priestly duty. Now, why don’t you get the hell out of here?”

“Good night,” Jack said. Stepping back, he gently closed the door. He could hear her crying on the other side.

Maggie suddenly woke up, not knowing where she was. She couldn’t see a thing, except for a crack of moonlight peeking between a set of closed curtains. Everything else was pitch-black. She had no idea of the time either. For a moment, the only thing she felt sure about was the presence of someone else in the dark room.

Lying still beneath the covers, Maggie was afraid to move. She didn’t want the intruder to know she was awake and onto him. Her head throbbed, and her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow. She had to go to the bathroom, too. Yet she didn’t budge.

She remembered drinking an awful lot, and embarrassing herself with Jack Murphy. He’d taken her to this room at the Lakeside Inn. She hadn’t locked up after he’d left. She’d passed out on the bed. Anyone could have slipped in.

Maggie tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness. If there was a clock on the nightstand, she didn’t see it. Still, she felt someone hovering over her.

Blindly, she reached for a lamp at her bedside. Her hand fanned at the air for a moment. She kept expecting the intruder to grab her by the wrist. She felt so vulnerable and helpless. At last, she found the lamp and fumbled for the switch.

She squinted in the light. The rest of the room was still shrouded in darkness. But at least she could see that no one was standing near the bed. And she could find her way to the bathroom. Maggie threw back the covers and hurried into the John. She peed, flushed the toilet, then gulped down a glass of water. Before wandering back to bed, she checked the door to her room. It wasn’t locked. She pressed the button in the center of the doorknob and fixed the chain lock.

Climbing back into bed, she switched off the light. As she drifted off, Maggie thought about checking the closet or behind the drapes. Just a few minutes before, she’d been so sure someone was in the room with her.

If that was true, she’d just locked him inside. As far as she was concerned, he could go ahead and kill her. She didn’t care. Her brother was dead. She’d made an ass out of herself with this sexy priest. She was miffed at her sisters and ex-husband. And tomorrow, she’d have one hell of a hangover. If someone killed her in her sleep, he’d be doing her a big favor.

When Maggie woke up again, it was morning. She crawled out of bed and staggered toward the bathroom. But she saw something that made her stop dead. She squinted at the room door. She didn’t understand. Hadn’t she set the chain lock a couple of hours ago?

She couldn’t have dreamed it. Yet now the chain lock was off. It didn’t make sense.

The only way someone could have unlatched that chain was if they’d already been in the room with her when she’d woken up last night.

The church basement seemed quite different with the overhead fluorescent on and birds chirping outside. Morning light filtered through the small windows. The statue of St. Joseph looked benign now. For this return trip to the catacombs, Jack wasn’t alone, and he didn’t have to climb though a window. He and Father Garcia had come down the basement stairs.

Jack was tired and blurry-eyed. He’d left Maggie Costello at the Lakeside Inn at 1:30 this morning. He couldn’t have caught more than four hours of sleep. Tom Garcia, on the other hand, was full of energy. He smelled of Old Spice and cigarettes.

Walking amid the dusty, discarded altar decorations, they reached the crypt door. “Last night on the phone,” Garcia said, “you mentioned you’d checked out this place ‘following a lead’?”

“That’s right,” Jack replied, pulling the key from his pocket. “But I can’t really talk about it.” He nodded ahead at the tunnel-like cavern. “I’ll show you what I found here and let you draw your own conclusions.”

Garcia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You’ll see what I mean,” Jack assured him.

They started down the center of the catacombs together. Garcia kept looking left and right as they passed the shadowy nooks. “Jack Murphy, you must have more balls than a Christmas tree to come down here alone in the dead of night.”

Jack directed his miniflashlight on the floor so Garcia could see all the shoe prints. “Looks like the boys who come down here are usually in pairs. If I remember right, the tracks veer to the left pretty soon.”

They found the final resting place for Monsignor Thayer Swann, but the votive candles weren’t there anymore. Jack trained the flashlight around the base of the marble slab. “Someone’s been down here,” he said. “Everything’s gone. There were scented candles and a bag full of bedding, pillows, and a comforter.”

Garcia frowned at him. “Last night on the phone, you told me that the boys were using the catacombs for a ‘meeting place.’ Now you’re talking about scented candles and bedsheets. What’s going on here, Jack?”

“I was hoping I could show you, and let you figure it out from there.”

“Figure what out?” He shook his head. “I can’t play these guessing games with you, Jack. You’ll have to help me out. Now, first, who told you about this place?”

“Sorry if I seem evasive,” Jack replied. “I had an anonymous tip, that’s all I can say. Last night, when I was down here, I found a bag full of bedding behind this grave marker—along with scented candles. Now they’re gone.”

“Bedding and scented candles? Secret meetings between seminarians?” Garcia raised his eyebrows, “Huh, I see. Were these private, one-on-one meetings?”

“I think so,” Jack said. He aimed his flashlight on the marker. “All the comforts of home were right here, but not anymore.”

“Maybe we’re in the wrong alcove.”

“No, it’s Thayer Swann’s grave,” Jack said. “You don’t forget a name like that. You know, I thought someone else was here last night. They must have their own key.” Jack directed the flashlight toward the slab once more. “The stains are still there,” he murmured.

Garcia crouched down by the rust-colored specks on the marble marker. “Sure looks like blood.” With a groan, he straightened up. “Tell you what. I’ll have Father Stutesman from the science department make an analysis. He’s no forensics expert, but maybe he can come up with the blood type for us. We’ll see if it matches John Costello’s.”

Garcia took out a tiny pocketknife and a handkerchief, then he squatted down by the bloodstain again. Jack watched him start to scrape at the dried crimson specks and catch the residue in his handkerchief. “Shouldn’t we leave that for the police?” he said. “It’s evidence.”

“The police investigation is closed, Jack. The autopsy results came in yesterday afternoon. Death by drowning.” He stood up, carefully folded the handkerchief, then slipped it in his pocket. “This is for our own in-house investigation. I don’t want it getting out that some of our seminarians are sneaking into the catacombs beneath the church at night to have sex.” He shook his head. “Huh, incredible. I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I,” Jack admitted.

Garcia patted him on the shoulder. “Well, you’ve done a bang-up job of looking into, this for us, Jack. I want to thank you.”

“Hey, don’t thank me yet. I’m not finished.”

“Well, yes, you are,” Garcia said. “For now, you better not dig into this any deeper.”

“But John’s death wasn’t an accident. I saw his body, and it was battered. A couple of his toes were sliced off.”

“He got knocked around in the water for several hours, Jack. There are a lot of sharp rocks and debris in that lake. It’s mentioned in the coroner’s report. I’ll make a copy for you if you want.”

“What about his clothes? He was in his underwear, no room key, no wallet—”

“He probably had them in a taped-up plastic bag,” Garcia said. “Isn’t that what some of these guys do when they swim across the lake? My guess is he had the bag in the water with him when he got a cramp or whatever. Considering all the tributaries off this lake, his stuff could be washed up on some riverbank in Alberta, Canada, by now. It’ll turn up—eventually.”

He patted Jack’s shoulder again. “Now, c’mon, let’s get out of here. It’s as cold as a polar bear’s you-know-what in this place.”

“Tom, listen.” Jack took hold of his arm. “My source indicated that John used to meet other boys here in secret. I think something happened in these catacombs Wednesday night, and one of Johnny’s ‘friends’ is covering it up.”

“Covering up what?” Garcia asked. “Evidence of a homicide?”

“Maybe,” he said.

Garcia pried away from his hold. He smiled patiently. “Or maybe a kid was scared someone would find out where he and a buddy were messing around. You’re best off leaving this investigation alone for now, Jack.”

He touched the handkerchief in his breast pocket. “I’ll see if Father Stutesman can analyze this blood. It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll let you know the results. Now, c’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Walking with Father Garcia up the center aisle of the catacombs, Jack wondered if the school’s head of administration was protecting the college, someone else, or maybe even himself.

He remembered Maggie asking him last night if they were trying to “hush up” Johnny’s death. He’d promised her that he would keep investigating. “
I’m counting on you
,” she’d said.

As they reached the catacomb door, Garcia paused. “I’ll lock up, Jack,” he said. Then he held out his hand. “I’d like to hold on to the key, too.”

Jack surrendered the key to him. “Of course,” he murmured. “Whatever you say.”

“That color looks good on you, Pete,” Maggie said.

Peter held one of Johnny’s shirts in front of him. He and Maggie stood by her car in the parking lot near St. Bartholomew Hall. She’d treated Peter to breakfast at the Lakeside Inn, and now invited him to rummage through the boxes of Johnny’s personal effects for anything he wanted.

Three aspirin and two cups of coffee had helped chase away her hangover—along with some of her concerns. Maggie reasoned that in her blind, drunken stupor last night, she probably hadn’t fixed the chain lock on the hotel room door.

The idea that someone had been in the room with her—watching her sleep—was just too frightening to consider. She hadn’t been harmed. She wasn’t missing any money or jewelry. Too much drink had impaired her judgment about the chain lock. That was all.

Amazingly, she and Peter had made it through breakfast without crying.

But now as she watched him handling Johnny’s clothes, Maggie noticed Peter’s brown eyes filling up with tears. Yet he seemed determined not to cry. He was a good-looking kid with wavy brown hair, endearingly gawky and thin. He’d worshiped Johnny, and always had a bit of a crush on her, too; Maggie could tell.

“Pete, what do you think really happened to Johnny?”

He set down the shirt. “I don’t know.”

“Half the clothes in there he bought over the summer with money he’d made caddying. It doesn’t make sense he’d still have twenty-two hundred dollars left over. Hell, he couldn’t have even earned that much all summer. But when Father Murphy asked you about the money he had hidden, you told him Johnny must have saved it from caddying.”

Peter shrugged. “God, Maggie, I was just guessing. I don’t know.”

She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Pete, if Johnny was involved in something secret or shady, I need to know. I don’t want you trying to spare my feelings. I know Johnny was no saint. That money had something to do with his death, I’m sure of it. Was Johnny dealing drugs?”

“God, no,” Peter said, frowning.

“Then what?” Maggie’s eyes searched his. “You’re holding something back, Pete. I can tell.”

“I’m not,” he said, exasperated. “I swear.”

Across the lake, the church bell rang ten times. “Listen, I’ll be late for the prayer service,” he said, then he started to turn away.

“Well, wait a minute,” Maggie said. “Don’t leave without some of these things. Johnny would want you to have them.”

Peter collected two of the boxes. “I’m sorry I’m not more of a help to you, Maggie,” he murmured.

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Do me a favor, and sit beside me at the funeral Mass, okay?”

Peter nodded sheepishly. Then he retreated into the dorm with the boxes of clothes he’d inherited from his dead friend.

There was no prayer service on Saturday morning. Peter had lied to Maggie about that. He’d lied about the money too.

As he rode up in the elevator to the fourth floor, Peter fought the tightness in his throat. He prayed no one would get on from another floor, because they’d see his eyes full of tears.

Loaded down with the two boxes, he managed to make it to his room and shut the door before he burst out crying. The boxes fell to the floor. He pulled out a blue shirt Johnny had been wearing on Tuesday. He could still smell him on it.

Peter buried his face in the shirt, then he curled up on his bed and sobbed. “
You know, I really hate it when you act like a girl
,” he could almost hear his best friend saying.

Johnny had actually said that to him once, during high school freshman year. Peter didn’t remember exactly what he was doing that seemed girlish. But he was so humiliated when Johnny had made that comment.

He’d met John Costello his first week in high school. Peter was always a loner. He’d spent so much time by himself, drawing, that he hardly knew anyone who wasn’t from his Catholic grade school. He didn’t even know Johnny, who lived only four blocks away. Johnny was the last stop on the high-school bus route. Peter was the next to last. One Friday afternoon, Johnny simply got off the bus with him. They played video games at Peter’s house, and Johnny stayed for dinner. After that, they were inseparable.

Johnny became a semipermanent member of the Tobin household. Apparently, things were pretty tense at his brother-in-law’s house. Peter rarely went over there, but often enough to develop a little platonic crush on Maggie Costello.

Peter didn’t want to acknowledge, not even to himself, that he had a different kind of crush on his best friend. Johnny unwittingly became his hero, and he very much looked the part. He had a great build: muscular arms and a lean, smoothly chiseled frame. With his “black Irish” looks, he was one of the handsomest guys in his class.

During the summers, they caddied at the same country club. In the evenings they’d go to the beach, the movies, gorge on pizza, or browse the mall. Johnny had always been short of money. But in the summer after their junior year, he started picking up the tab at the pizza parlor, and he didn’t hesitate to buy anything that caught his fancy—a sweater or a skateboard or tickets to a Mariners game.

“How did you become Mr. Got-Bucks all of the sudden?” Peter asked him one night as they left a music store. Johnny had just splurged on three CDs. “I’m practically broke trying to keep up with you. We make the same kind of money at the country club. I don’t get it. Where’s all the dough coming from?”

Johnny shrugged. “I must make better tips than you.”

“From those tightwads?”

“Guess I’m just a better caddie than you,” Johnny replied. “Now, c’mon, let’s get move it. We’ll be late for the movie. My treat.”

Ironically, lack of money was one of the reasons Johnny decided to attend college at the seminary. He had no intention of becoming a priest. But at Our Lady of Sorrows, room, board, and education came cheap, and he wouldn’t be too far away from his sister.

Peter thought he was nuts at first. Johnny studying for the priesthood? He couldn’t picture his friend going to Mass every day, poring over the Bible, and totally relinquishing girls.

Peter also couldn’t picture himself making it through the next four years without Johnny. He applied to Our Lady of Sorrows the same day as his best friend.

There was a lot to hate about the school. But on the plus side, it wasn’t a big sports college, so Peter didn’t feel ostracized for his athletic shortcomings. Besides, Johnny was there.

But after a few weeks, Johnny and Father Murphy became fast friends. Peter felt abandoned. He pulled back from Johnny, giving him some distance and hoping Johnny would notice. This tactic only left Peter more isolated and alone. Johnny started hanging out with the upperclassmen on the other side of the lake. He wasn’t lonely.

Peter tried to accept the fact that things were different. By Christmas break, he thought about leaving Our Lady of Sorrows and starting at another college. But he stayed.

Late one night in February, Peter had just switched off his reading light and slid under the covers when somebody tapped on his door. “Hey, Pete,” he heard Johnny whisper from the hallway. “You still awake? Pete?”

He climbed out of bed and opened the door. Johnny wore a white T-shirt, jeans, and black tennis shoes. His face and arms were so pink, he almost looked sunburned. He was shivering. The guys weren’t supposed to be in each others’ rooms after the eleven o’clock curfew on week nights, and it was almost one in the morning. Pete grabbed Johnny’s arm to pull him inside. His skin was like ice. “Jesus, you’re freezing,” Peter said, closing the door behind him. “What’s going on?”